Life as a Physicist

Well, I’ve been caught in one strike. But that was in Italy. Tomorrow and Wednesday I’ll have my first real French Strike experience. Technically, no one is going on strike until tomorrow night, around 8pm. Unfortunately, university students have decided to try to block the train stations tomorrow. No one knows how effective they will be, or if any stations will actually be closed. Thus my carefully laid plans to arrive in Paris tomorrow before the start of the strike…

It gets better. I return to France next Monday. I figured that was enough time for the strike to play itself out. Turns out that all public sector administrative assistants will be going on strike next Tuesday – and the SNCF folks are planning on joining them in a huge rally. So now I have no clue what I’ll do when I get back to France. Of course, it is all uncertain and no one knows what will really happen. At the very least it should be entertaining.

I hope my credit card can buy me out of getting stuck in Paris. Not that Paris is a bad place to be stuck. Hmm…. Hold those horses a minute…

I also found out a bit more about what is motivating the strike. I’ll try to write about that in the next few days. From a USA perspective it is odd.